Lifeboat Foundation

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) kicked off the Subterranean Challenge in December 2017, with the goal of equipping future warfighters and first responders with tools to rapidly map, navigate, and search hazardous underground environments. The final winner of the four-event competition won’t be selected until 2021, but Team Explorer from Carnegie Mellon University and Oregon State University managed to best rivals for the initial prize.

On four occasions during the eight-day Tunnel Circuit event, which concluded today, each team deployed multiple robots into National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health research mines in South Park Township, Pennsylvania, tasked with autonomously navigating mud and water and communicating with each other and a base station for an hour at a time as they searched for objects. Team Explorer’s roughly 30 university faculty, students, and staff members leveraged two ground robots and two drones to find 25 artifacts in its two best runs (14 more than any other team), managing to identify and locate a backpack within 20 centimeters of its actual position.

“Mobility was a big advantage for us,” said team co-leader Sebastian Scherer, associate research professor in Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, in a statement. “The testing [prior to the event, at Tour-Ed Mine in Tarentum, Pennsylvania] was brutal at the end, but it paid off in the end. We were prepared for this … We had big wheels and lots of power, and autonomy that just wouldn’t quit.”

Is a privately-owned startup based out of New Mexico, USA. Their team leans on expertise gained at NASA, the US Department of Energy, Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs, and the US Air Force. Planetoid Mines’ primary focus is developing the core components that enable asteroid mining. Many of their instruments and tools will be compatible with mining applications on the lunar surface and on Earth.

A lot of activity has been brewing with regards to new space exploration initiatives. Launch costs are plummeting due to market competition and the development of reusable rockets. Additionally, there has been a measurable uptick in growth and investment in commercial space ventures. Every major national space agency has ambitions for operations in lunar orbit and on the lunar surface within the next 5 to 20 years.

Washington (AFP) — Amazon, Microsoft and Intel are among leading tech companies putting the world at risk through killer robot development, according to a report that surveyed major players from the sector about their stance on lethal autonomous weapons.

Dutch NGO Pax ranked 50 companies by three criteria: whether they were developing technology that could be relevant to deadly AI, whether they were working on related military projects, and if they had committed to abstaining from contributing in the future.

“Why are companies like Microsoft and Amazon not denying that they’re currently developing these highly controversial weapons, which could decide to kill people without direct human involvement?” said Frank Slijper, lead author of the report published this week.

North Korea has miniaturised nuclear warheads and made them small enough to fit on ballistic missiles, Japan believes.

Tokyo defence chiefs warn in a new white paper that North Korea’s military activities pose a ‘serious and imminent threat’.

Continue reading “Japan warns North Korea now has miniaturized nukes” »

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk not only wants to explore Mars, he wants to ‘nuke’ it.

In a tweet this week, Musk reiterated calls to ‘Nuke Mars!’ adding that t-shirts are ‘coming soon.’

Continue reading “Elon Musk back to promoting bombing Mars with nuclear weapons” »

Robots from all over the world are about to go on a subterranean adventure, competing against each other in mining tunnels to determine which ones can best navigate and find objects underground and do so autonomously.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is hosting the Subterranean Challenge Systems Competition on Aug. 15–22 in Pittsburgh as a way to develop technology for the military and first responders to map and search subterranean areas.

Harvard University researchers have developed a new powered exosuit that can make you feel as much as a dozen pounds lighter when walking or running. Scientific American reports that the 11-pound system, which is built around a pair of flexible shorts and a motor worn on the lower back, could benefit anyone who has to cover large distances by foot, including recreational hikers, military personnel, and rescue workers.

According to the researchers, who have published their findings in the journal Science, this system differs from previous exosuits because it’s able to make it easier to both walk and run. The challenge, as shown by a video accompanying the research, is that your legs work very differently depending on whether you’re walking or running. When walking, the team says your center of mass moves like an “inverted pendulum,” while running causes it to move like a “spring-mass system.” The system needs to be able to accommodate both of them, and sense when the wearer’s gait changes.

Over-conservative climate scenarios mean we could face ‘world of outright chaos’, says analysis authored by former fossil fuel executive and backed by former head of Australia’s military.

Robots are about to go underground — for a competition anyways.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense dedicated to developing new emerging technologies, is holding a challenge intended to develop technology for first responders and the military to map, navigate, and search underground. But the technology developed for the competition could also be used in future NASA missions to caves and lava tubes on other planets.

Continue reading “NASA Robots to Compete in Underground Challenge in Mining Tunnels” »